The Twinkling Tutu Read online

  Ava couldn’t help wondering what had happened to her, but was afraid that it might sound very rude to ask. In any case Ava guessed that was the sort of thing her dad would be finding out when he interviewed her for his book.

  ‘Now . . . I know that all of you have high hopes of becoming pupils at my school. But if I feel you would not benefit from a place here I shall tell you so at once. This may be hard for you to hear – and even harder for some of your mothers – but nevertheless I believe it is important to be honest from the start. I shall speak to all of your mothers personally when they call back to collect you.’ She paused, looking in turn at each girl as if to assess the affect her words had had on her.

  As she looked at Ava she frowned and called out to the lady at the piano, ‘Some hairgrips please, Anna.’ The older woman immediately rose and went over to the mantelpiece to pick up a small wooden box, which she brought over to the ballet mistress. Ava was bright red in the face as Madame Varty plucked off her floral headband and proceeded to pin up Ava’s hair with a deftness that was impressive.

  She clapped her hands together to silence the other girls, who had all started to giggle, before sending Ava back to stand in line. ‘Quiet now . . . Take a place at the bar, all of you, and let us do some simple exercises to warm up. Then I shall ask each of you to perform the audition piece you have prepared for me.’

  Ava felt her heart start to beat faster. She had attended only a handful of ballet lessons back when she was five – and she could hardly remember any of the steps she had learned then. And as for performing an audition piece . . .

  She suddenly realized she ought to leave before she made a total fool of herself – but how?

  Her stomach had already started to churn alarmingly which made it pretty easy to pretend to be ill. Clutching her middle, she mumbled an apology and ran across the room to the door.

  She heard Madame Varty calling out after her, but she didn’t look back as she headed for the staircase, hurrying down it as fast as she could. Unfortunately her exit from the house was blocked by one of the maids who was standing in the doorway greeting a rather grand-looking lady in a large hat. Ava darted into the drawing room instead, but found that it contained the two ladies she had seen outside, still talking animatedly to each other as they took off their bonnets and silk shawls. These must be two of the girls’ mothers, arriving to wait for them, Ava thought, briefly wishing her own mother wasn’t so far away as she escaped back into the hall.

  She tried the next door along, which opened into a large airy room with windows that looked out on to the back garden, but that room was also occupied. The young sour-faced maid was there, along with a short wiry-looking middle-aged man dressed in dark grey baggy clothes, brightened by a gaudy red scarf tied around his neck. Neither of them seemed to have heard Ava come in as they continued to stand with their backs to her in front of the large marble fireplace – out of which, to Ava’s amazement, a pair of small blackened feet could be seen protruding!

  Ava noticed then that the floor of the room was covered in sheets of brown paper, the curtains had been taken down from the windows, the dining table and other furniture had been covered with large dust sheets, and that all the pictures on the walls had cloths draped over them.

  ‘You find that little imp or I’ll light a fire under both of yer,’ the man was snarling at the pair of disappearing feet. For a moment Ava remained puzzled, then she realized that the man must be a chimney sweep and that the feet must belong to his climbing boy. ‘He’s small enough, that littl’un I sent up first, so he can’t ’ave got ’iself stuck,’ the master sweep was saying to the maid.

  ‘The other one looks like he might do though,’ the maid replied. ‘He’s a big lad to be sendin’ up a flue, ain’t he?’

  ‘They’re brothers – I’m doin’ them a kindness to let ’em work together,’ the sweep grunted defensively. ‘The littl’un’s handy for gettin’ into tight places an’ the bigger one keeps ’im from gettin’ too scared and freezin’ stuck on me. Though what’s happened to ’im today, I don’t know!’

  Ava suddenly felt worried as she remembered something her father had told her recently about Victorian chimney sweeps – that child sweeps sometimes got stuck in narrow chimneys and suffocated. He had once seen it happen with his own eyes – and it was something that still upset him when he talked of it.

  The master sweep didn’t seem the least bit worried however. ‘Where’s she from then, this grand lady of yours?’ he asked the maid as he scratched his nose with a sooty finger.

  ‘She’s just moved back to England from abroad,’ the maid told him, clearly enjoying the chance to gossip. ‘All I know is that she used to be a ballerina – quite a famous one in foreign parts, so they say – but something happened that meant she couldn’t dance no more. She was widowed very young, so Mrs Potter our housekeeper says, and she doesn’t have no other family. She was left this house by her great-aunt and she’s going to turn it into a ballet school.’

  ‘A ballet school, eh?’ The sweep had produced a long brush and he was pushing the stick end of it up the chimney after his climbing boy. ‘Get a move on, you little beggar!’ he shouted up at him gruffly. ‘We ’aven’t got all day!’ He turned back to the maid with a sly look on his face. ‘I don’t s’pose you’ve some straw or a bit of wood for me to light in the grate?’

  ‘Whatever for, when it’s the middle of summer?’ the maid exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘To get those lazy little beggars to move a bit faster, that’s what for,’ answered the sweep, giving her a devilish grin.

  This was too much for Ava, who could keep quiet no longer. ‘You can’t light a fire under them!’ she shouted in horror. ‘I won’t let you!’

  The sweep and the maid both jumped.

  ‘Ee, it’s just one of Madame’s girls,’ the maid said, recovering quickly as she recognized Ava. ‘What are you doing in here, miss? Why aren’t you upstairs with the others?’

  At that moment another servant, who Ava hadn’t seen before, entered the room. Judging by the woman’s age and her attire, she looked like she might be the housekeeper.

  ‘There you are!’ she exclaimed when she saw Ava. ‘The mistress sent me to find you – as if I haven’t got anything better to do this morning! Come on! You’re to come back upstairs with me at once.’

  ‘But there are two boys up that chimney, and this man’s going to light a fire under them!’ Ava burst out. ‘You’ve got to stop him!’

  To Ava’s dismay, the housekeeper just laughed dismissively, saying she didn’t care what the sweep did, as long as it resulted in her chimneys getting cleaned. ‘And it’s no business of yours either, miss,’ she told Ava sharply, attempting to take hold of her by the elbow and escort her from the room.

  ‘Don’t you touch me!’ Ava snapped, pulling her arm away roughly.

  Just then the door opened again and Madame Varty limped into the room, causing the master sweep to bow his head politely and the young maid to do a respectful bob.

  ‘Would someone kindly tell me what is going on here?’ the ballet teacher demanded.

  ‘It’s this naughty girl you sent me to look for, Madame,’ the housekeeper declared hotly, pointing at Ava. ‘She won’t let the sweeps get on with their work!’

  ‘That’s not true! I only want to stop them lighting a fire under the boys who’ve gone up that chimney!’ Ava burst out, close to tears now.

  Madame Varty frowned questioningly at the master sweep. ‘Surely the child is mistaken?

  The sweep just shrugged.

  Madame Varty turned to address her housekeeper. ‘Surely you would not let that happen, Mrs Potter?’

  At that the housekeeper quickly changed her tune. ‘Not me, Madame, no. It was the sweep himself and the servant girl there who were about to do it.’

  ‘Well, I absolutely forbid such a thing to take place in my house,’ stated Madame Varty crossly, glaring at the sweep and the young maid with knitted brows. ‘Is that c
lear?’

  The servant girl looked close to tears, but the sweep merely replied evenly, ‘Whatever you say, m’lady. Not that they’d have come to any real harm. A little scorchin’ of the feet never did any permanent hurt an’ it’s a kindness really, as it encourages ’em faster up the flue an’ they breathes in less soot that way.’

  Madame Varty looked sceptical, but instead of responding she turned her attention back to Ava. ‘You, young lady, are to come back upstairs with me at once. There is only one cure for stage fright in my opinion – and that is to force oneself to dance in spite of it.’

  ‘But I haven’t got stage fright,’ Ava protested. ‘I just don’t want to audition any more, that’s all.’

  ‘Nevertheless you must,’ the ballet mistress insisted vehemently. ‘To have insufficient talent is one thing – but to allow fear to hold you back is quite another.’

  ‘Oh, but I do have insufficient talent,’ Ava attempted to reassure her. ‘Honestly, I have absolutely no talent at all!’

  But Madame Varty clearly wasn’t about to accept Ava’s word for it, and Ava saw that the only way she was going to convince her was to actually demonstrate that fact. And it was only then that another thought suddenly occurred to her. Her ballet dress was magical, wasn’t it? So was it possible that here, on this side of the portal, she would be able to dance after all?

  4

  As Ava stood in the middle of the room at the start of her audition she felt trembly and completely clueless about what to do next. If the magic in the ballet tutu did give the ability to dance to whoever wore it, it clearly wasn’t taking hold immediately.

  Then, just as she was giving up on the prospect of any magical help and resigning herself to being totally humiliated in front of everybody, there came a sudden loud banging noise over by the chimney.

  As everyone in the room turned to look the banging got louder, clearly coming from inside the chimney. A cloud of filthy soot suddenly billowed out into the room, closely followed by a little black bundle of rags that cried out in pain as it landed with a thud on the tiled hearth.

  Chaos immediately broke out, with some of the girls screaming and all of them clambering to get as far away as possible from the little bundle, which Ava now saw was a small child covered from head to toe in black soot. The child was trembling, its eyes fixed and staring like a rabbit caught in headlamps.

  As Madame Varty clapped her hands together to try and restore order, the child remained transfixed, its eyes wide with wonder at the sight of all the little ballerinas in their pure white clothes. Then the master sweep, who must have heard all the commotion from downstairs, came charging into the room to grab the child – which produced even more screams from the hysterical ballet girls.

  Seeing that this was her chance to escape, Ava followed behind the master sweep as he dangled the little climbing boy by the scruff of his tunic and bumped him roughly down the stairs. Mrs Potter the housekeeper was standing below them in the hallway, holding the front door open as she screeched, ‘Lift him up off my carpet, you wretched oaf ! You’re putting soot everywhere!’

  The master sweep grinned, clearly enjoying upsetting the housekeeper as he turned to the little climbing boy and said, ‘Look at this, Fred. We’re bein’ shown out the front door today, we are!’

  ‘You’re not taking him through my nice clean house to get to the back!’ the housekeeper yelled. ‘And don’t think we’ll be having you sweep our flues again, not if I have any say in it!’

  The sweep mumbled something rude at her under his breath as he pushed the boy down the front steps, with Ava following close behind. Mrs Potter either didn’t notice or didn’t care that Ava was leaving too as she slammed the door shut behind them.

  As the sweep gave the boy a kick to get him to his feet, he declared, ‘I’ll give you a good beatin’ when we get back, that I shall. An’ now I’ve got to go an’ find that wretched brother of yours. If he gets stuck up there an’ never comes down again, it’ll be you that’s to blame, boy – just you think on that.’ He gave the child another kick in the direction of the path that ran up the side of the house where some cats were fighting over a pile of fish heads and other scraps that had been left out for them. ‘You can wait there by that pile o’ stinkin’ scraps. At least then I won’t forget where I’ve left you.’ He didn’t seem to even register that Ava was there as he strode off towards the back of the house.

  Ava waited until she was sure the sweep was gone before going over to the little boy, who she could hear crying softly. He looked two or three years younger than her and much smaller and thinner, dressed only in a ragged tunic and trousers that left his filthy arms and legs bare. He had taken off his cloth cap to scratch at his hair, which was totally caked in soot. In fact, every part of him was black with soot, apart from his eyes, which were sore and red as he rubbed away tears.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ Ava exclaimed, nearly in tears herself at the sight of him.

  The boy looked frightened and shuffled away from her. His elbows and knees were bleeding and his tunic was badly torn. He quickly replaced his cap as if that would afford him some sort of comfort, then took it off again as he realized he must show respect in the presence of a lady.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ Ava asked, squatting down beside him. ‘Your name’s Fred, isn’t it? Mine’s Ava. Would you like me to fetch you a drink or something?’ Ava was sure that whoever owned the furniture shop across the road would provide her with a cup of water.

  At first she thought the boy wasn’t going to speak, but then he suddenly whispered, ‘Me brother, miss . . . is ’e safe? Did you see ’im?’

  ‘I saw his feet disappearing up the chimney when they sent him up after you,’ Ava replied.

  ‘They didn’t light a fire under ’im, did they? The master is always playin’ that trick.’

  ‘No – the lady who owns the house wouldn’t let him light a fire,’ Ava said. ‘Oh, but your master’s a horrible man! Isn’t there some other job you and your brother could do? Surely you’ve some family who can help you?’

  The little boy looked at her as if he was starting to think she might be a figment of his imagination. ‘I don’t know of no other job, miss. And me family is the ones who sold us to the sweep.’

  ‘Your mother and father sold you?!’ Ava exclaimed in horror.

  The boy shook his head. ‘Our mother’s dead an’ our father couldn’t cope no more so ’e took us to live with our aunt and uncle. He said he’d come back an’ fetch us, but he never did. It was our uncle who sold us, after he got fed up waiting for our pa. He didn’t want no children to bring up, he said – especially ones that weren’t his own.’

  ‘But that’s terrible!’

  ‘They live in the next street from here,’ the boy added. ‘The master said ’e went an’ asked them this mornin’ if we could do their chimneys too, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Tom thinks they’d feel too guilty, seein’ us like this.’

  ‘Tom’s your brother, is he?’

  The little sweep nodded. ‘He looks after me. I just hope I haven’t got ’im in no trouble. I got lost in those crooked chimney passages, see. I didn’t mean to scare all you young ladies when I fell down the wrong flue.’ The boy paused, a strange look on his face. ‘For a minute I thought I’d died an’ gone to heaven, seeing you all there. I even thought I saw our mother. That were a sweet moment! Then the master came for me and I knew I was just imaginin’ it.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Ava said, puzzled. ‘Do you mean you thought we were angels or something?’

  ‘Oh no, miss – I could see you was ballerinas. Like my mother was ’fore she died . . . Ever so beautiful she was . . . Sometimes she’d let us watch her from the side of the stage while she rehearsed, and we’d see the other dancers too. It was like being back with her again, seeing all of you jus’ now . . .’ A tear rolled down the boy’s face, which he quickly wiped away.

  ‘Your mother was a ballet dancer?’ Ava aske
d gently.

  The boy nodded. ‘An’ I was going to be one too, but Tom says I never will now.’

  ‘Did you like dancing too then?’ Ava asked in surprise.

  The boy nodded. ‘My mother said she thought I’d be just as good as her one day. But Tom says I’ve to forget about all that now, or else the two of us won’t be able to stay together.’

  ‘I suppose it’s mainly girls who become ballet dancers anyway, isn’t it?’ Ava said slowly.

  The child gave her a strange look. ‘There are boy dancers too, miss, but in any case I is a girl. Me real name’s Florrie. Our uncle let Tom cut off my hair and pretend I was a boy so Tom and me could stay together. Girls ain’t meant to go up chimneys, see, tho’ I knows I ain’t the only one what does.’

  Ava just stared at the little sweep, completely amazed.

  ‘Miss, can I have that drink o’ water now?’ Florrie asked shyly.

  Ava quickly came to her senses. ‘Of course. Why don’t you come with me to fetch it?’ She stood up and held out her hand.

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t touch me, miss. I’ll cover you in soot!’ the child exclaimed, sounding horrified.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I can wash it off,’ Ava said, wondering when the little sweep herself had last been washed, she was so filthy.

  ‘I’d best stay here in case the master comes back,’ Florrie said quickly. ‘Don’t worry about fetchin’ me any water if it’s a trouble for you, miss.’